


you feel like falling down (i'll carry you home)

by versipelle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Comforting, Death References, Derek Has Feelings, Heart-to-Heart, M/M, One Shot, Protective Derek, Sad Stiles, Talking, pre-Sterek - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-20 08:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/versipelle/pseuds/versipelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek finds Stiles crying at home, and they end up discussing their losses during a heart-to-heart that leads to a confession...</p>
            </blockquote>





	you feel like falling down (i'll carry you home)

Derek’s doing evening patrol, his regular routine while the others are at college, making sure no one decides to use the lack of pack in Beacon Hills to their advantage. He probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if Scott hadn’t texted him earlier, asking him to make sure he goes past the Stilinski house tonight.

He would have anyway, it’s on his route, part of the deal he and Stiles made so that he wouldn’t hang around in the town for the sake of his father, a promise to come by every night and check up on him. Occasionally, it would be an actual visit - now that the sheriff knew everything, the tension between them had lifted and they caught up on news, each relaying information Stiles didn’t really want the other to know. But mostly, it was just walking down the street of an evening, listening for a steady heartbeat, regular breathing, the background noise of a television.

They all mix together with the sounds from the other houses, so he almost passes by without question until a sound pricks his ears. A quiet sob that sounds like it escaped unwillingly from its owner’s mouth, and now that he’s really focusing, an irregularly loud heartbeat, forced and intense breathing alongside those he hears every night. He thinks he recognises them, although the memory is painfully faint.

He vaults up to the window in a single jump, such is his worry, and he pushes it halfway before rolling through and catching his foot on a large gym bag, causing him to end up sprawling on the floor, grumbling about the constant messiness of the room like it hadn’t been over six months since the last time he was in here.

“Nice job on the subtlety,” Stiles says as he rapidly wipes his eyes, but Derek can see the redness and the way Stiles’s mouth doesn’t tip upwards into a smirk despite the snark. There’s a song playing softly from a speaker on the other side of the room, something about being young, but it sounds too upbeat to be causing Stiles to cry. He wonders why Stiles is bothering to hide it, trying to hide himself. He hadn’t told anyone he’d be in Beacon Hills, or at least not Derek. Scott seemed to know, but even he hadn’t warned him.

He got up from the ground, walked over and paused the music. Stiles didn’t even protest.

“What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Evening patrol, just like I promised.”

He worries for a second that he gave a little too much of himself away with that, the way Stiles looks up at him, tears still dancing against the bottom of his eye, the saddest little smile on his face. It pains him to see Stiles this upset, makes him wish he could climb on the bed and hold him, tell him the real reason behind the promise, but instead he seats himself on the end of the bed and says nothing.

“I’m pretty sure I’m fine, no indoor patrol required.”

“You’re not fine. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Stiles says, too quickly, too defensively. He’s heard this one before.

“People don’t just sit in their rooms and cry by themselves when nothing’s wrong.”

“Maybe they do.”

Derek snorts. “Maybe they do. But they probably tell their pack, their Alpha, when they’re back in town if nothing’s wrong too.” He takes Stiles’s silence as an admission of guilt. As if confirming it, his phone begins to ring from the table beside the bed. Derek reaches over and grabs it before Stiles can, and he almost answers it until it stops ringing during the time it takes to decide to.

“That was Scott. But you probably knew that, since you have... _seventeen_ missed calls from him today. The first one was at eleven o’clock this morning. What the hell is going on, Stiles?”

Stiles flinches back, and he regrets using such an angry tone with him. Something is clearly wrong, and now Derek is worried too. The phone starts to ring again, and as he hits the little green phone symbol, Stiles hurriedly hisses “tell him I’m fine.”

“Stiles, you finally answered, where are you I’ve been ringing all day and --”

“Scott, it’s me.”

“Derek! So he is there, I thought he might be.”

“Yeah he is. He told me to tell you that he’s fine.”

At that, Stiles scowls and pouts and flails arms at him in a vaguely attacking-like manner. “That is not what I meant!” he mouths at him, but it’s too late now and Stiles’ll just have to deal with it. He should have answered the goddamn phone himself.

“Figures. Just... look after him, yeah? And tell him to talk to him when he’s up to it.”

“What is going on?” Derek asks, getting more and more frustrated at the way no one is explaining anything.

“I’m sure he’ll tell you in time. See you soon, Derek. Remember, take care of him.”

He hangs up before Derek can intimidate him via mobile, so he flings it to the bed in annoyance. Stiles gives him an annoyed look that clearly tells him that if he breaks that phone, there’ll be hell to pay. Whatever, he’ll buy him a new one right now if he means he’ll tell him why he’s here, why he’s not happy.

It dawns on him then that this is his responsibility right now, to make Stiles happy when he isn’t. Scott wants him to take care of Stiles, not dig around and find out why. Maybe it’s exactly the right thing to do, maybe it’s what Scott does when Stiles isn’t happy. It’s not something he’s good at, not something he’s ever really had to do since he was younger, but he can try. He can try for Stiles.

Stiles is looking at him again, his eyes dried out now, but there’s still a swollenness around them that makes him ache in a way he never thought he would again. His expression says he’s ready for a further onslaught of questions, but that isn’t his plan any more. It’s probably always been the wrong way to go about gleaning information from him anyway. Let him talk, and information flows free even when it shouldn’t, after all.

“You want to watch a film?” he asks, and Stiles’s eyes light up with surprise.

“I - I guess.”

Stiles pulls the laptop over from the table, clicks and slides his finger across the touchpad until there’s a list in front of him on the screen. “These are our choices,” he says. Derek’s seen most of them, from the times he went to the cinema alone for something to do after Beacon Hills went quiet and everyone went their separate ways. There’s a name he doesn’t really recognise though.

“What’s Pacific Rim?”

“You haven’t seen it? Oh my god! We have to watch it, it’s settled.”

Stiles is finally animated and it’s wonderful, but he can’t help but ask, “you’ve already seen it?”

“Oh yeah, like three times,” he replies with a smile, “but it’s so good I don’t mind.”

Derek pulls himself up the bed, settles in beside Stiles who is initially very uncomfortable which makes Derek feel just as weird, but then the movie starts and Stiles seems to forget everything, eyes drawn on the screen. Derek’s eyes dart about even though the film is undoubtedly very good, because it’s a routine and he can’t just snap out of it for two hours even when faced with such a fantastic distraction.

Part way through, the sheriff calls out to Stiles that he’s going to work, and he pauses the film to say goodnight to his dad, and briefly the sadness seems to cloak around him again as Derek gets up and closes the window, quickly scanning for trouble as the sheriff heads to his car. It’s almost dark now, and he presumes the sheriff is doing a night shift.

He climbs back onto the bed and shuffles himself downwards to get comfortable. Stiles leans out to allow it, then quietly rests his head against Derek’s shoulders after he presses play. He can feel a faint steady pulse in his arm from the side of his head. It’s strangely reassuring, as is the smile that Derek sees appear once the film restarts.

He ends up being torn between the two - half his attention on the film, the other on watching Stiles as if somehow it will make him understand the problem. As the credits roll, Stiles nudges his head back and looks up at him. He quickly flicks his eyes back to the screen, but he’s pretty sure he was caught.

“What did you think?”

“It was excellent.”

“Way to sound enthusiastic, dude.”

“It was good! I liked it. I just --”

“Don’t do enthusiasm?”

“Not really,” he says, amused despite himself.

“Imagine if we ever had to deal with kaiju, man, even we wouldn’t be able to deal with that shit.”

He yawned suddenly, and Derek was then terribly aware of the fact that they were sat together in bed, Stiles’s head against his shoulder in soft lighting. “You must be really tired,” he said, hitching himself up until he was sat on the edge of the bed, a soft flump behind him of Stiles falling back onto his pillow as Derek moved.

“You’re leaving?” he asked quietly.

“Only if you want me to.”

It kind of slipped out without him even really thinking, but Stiles actually smiled at him when he said it, and he knew he’d find some reason to stay even if Stiles said he could leave because of it. It’s the little things.

“Don’t go,” he says, almost a whisper.

“I won’t.”

He comes back to the bed, sits down next to him, puts his legs up against Stiles’s and wraps an arm around his shoulders before he can overthink it and stop himself. Stiles leans back into it, just slightly, and he feels better. “Hmm?” he questions, because he thinks Stiles just said something.

“Thanks,” he says quietly. “I just - I felt better, you know, then I realised I was gonna be on my own again and I just didn’t want to be, I didn’t want to think --” He rolls on to his side, still using Derek’s arm as a pillow. “You’re going to think I’m so stupid when you find out why.”

“Tell me,” Derek says then, “I promise I won’t.”

“You’re all about the promises, aren’t you?”

“I take them seriously.”

Stiles echoes his look from the end of the film as he gazes up at him, searching for something on his face. Whatever it is, he doesn’t find it because he frowns. Maybe he’s looking for a sign that he’s joking. He isn’t.

“Someone died today,” Stiles says, and it’s the last thing Derek expects. He can obviously sense his alarm, because he immediately clarifies. “Not someone I know, no one I ever even spoke to. Just a guy from a couple of TV shows I watch, have done for years now. You must think I’m so crazy right now.”

Derek says nothing, waits to hear everything. Stiles carries on.

“He was barely older than you, I think. He wasn’t old. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. I’m not the kind of guy who gets upset when a celebrity dies, because I’ve seen enough of it, especially these last few years. But something about it really got to me. I felt like I knew him a little bit, watched his shows, read interviews with him, I cared about what he was doing because he seemed like a good person. Now he’s just gone.”

There’s a little hitch, a gasp of something and Derek wraps his arm tighter around Stiles’s back, moves his other hand to rest on his chest. It settles him slightly, lets him speak again.

“I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Everyone was talking about it, what a shock it was, and it was swirling round in my head and I couldn’t stop. People that knew him started doing little tributes online, about last time they saw him, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I hadn’t seen everyone for so long. That he could have been one of us, that _it_ could have been one of us and that I wasn’t here. It could have been Scott, or Isaac or you, and I wouldn’t have been here.”

Derek can feel the tears hitting his hand, and he wants so much to brush them away but Stiles isn’t finished.

“Then I started thinking about my mum and how horrible that was, but that at least I was there for it, and there was some warning, some time to say everything that needed to be said. How that was almost better, and then I thought of my dad here, alone, and if something happened to him while I wasn’t there that I’d just -- and I just got in the jeep and drove here without saying anything to anyone.”

He rubs a figure of eight pattern into his chest with a finger, something soothing and repetitive.

“I held it together for my dad, he thinks it’s just a surprise visit, but I --”

His voice breaks, sounding devastatingly pained and hopeless.

“I can’t cope.”

“It’s okay,” Derek says finally, “it is. Everyone feels like this.”

“Everyone doesn’t have perpetual supernatural danger following them round, Derek.”

He feels guilty, horribly guilty. But he didn’t bring all this on Stiles and Scott, his uncle did, it wasn’t his fault. It was about the only thing he didn’t feel he deserved the blame for. If anything, the boy was safer for knowing everything that happened in Beacon Hills that the rest of the population who were free of the knowledge. He didn’t say that, though.

“I understand, Stiles. More than anyone.”

For the third time, Stiles looks up at him, but it’s with a whole new look like he’s staring at something new, something previously undiscovered.

“I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking --”

“Stiles, stop. It’s okay to be upset. You might not have known this guy personally, but you did know him. You followed his career, you read what he had to say about life and love and everything else, you knew his thoughts on that stuff. You’re allowed to be upset that he’s not here any more, because he was a part of your life, even if it was only in an abstract way and you never realised it until he wasn’t there any longer.”

“When did you get so philosophical?” Stiles asks, and Derek huffs out a quiet laugh.

“I’ve had a lot of time on my own to think, Stiles.”

He doesn’t mean it to be so soul baring, but it is nonetheless.

“I don’t want to lose anyone else,” Stiles replies eventually. “I know that’s selfish and impossible, but I don’t know if I can deal with it. I think it’s the shock of it more than anything. I can’t picture him not being around, and if I can’t picture someone I only saw for an hour a week through a screen being gone, how am I supposed to do it with friends, with family?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says simply. “I should, but I still don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says, “I know this is probably the worst subject ever --”

“Don’t apologise. Everyone has to have it happen to them, whether they like it or not. I don’t think I could have done what you did though.”

“What?” Stiles asks, confused.

“Had so much time. Waited. Maybe you’re right, maybe it would have been nice to say everything - but I’m not sure I would have known what to say.”

“I never really thought of it like that.”

Stiles places his hand over Derek’s as he says it, one finger idly rubbing away the dampness of a fallen tear. His head pushes further into the crook of his arm, and Derek shuffles his arm round to further block him in, as though it would keep the bad thoughts away.

“No one does. No one can. Anyway, you know I’m not much of a talker.”

Stiles laughs at that, a true laugh, and his heart lifts slightly.

“Maybe I should be, though,” he says, feeling brave. “I mean, if something ever happened to you, I’d want you to know everything, and I guess I know what I want to say.” He twists his head away slightly so he can’t see Stiles’s reaction.

“Which is?”

“I’m,” he starts, but stops himself, gathers his thoughts. There’s only one shot at this, after all. “There’s a reason I promised you that I’d come by here everyday, that I come and talk to your dad sometimes, exchange gossip about you with him.”

“You do not!” Stiles says, shocked but not displeased.

“I’m afraid I do,” he chuckles, “you’ve been keeping things from us all, that’s for sure.”

He feels more than sees Stiles’s embarrassment.

“Anyway, the reason I did all that is because, I thought, then I’d know you were coming back for sure. Because I needed you to come back. I mean, I need you all to come back, but you especially, Stiles,” he says, talking to the window because he can’t bear to turn back and see the horror on Stiles’s face. “I care about you. A lot.”

Suddenly he’s being squeezed tight and he forces himself to look down, finding Stiles shedding tears into his shirt, leaving a wet patch on his chest just below his armpit. “That better not stain,” he jokes desperately.

“You’re an idiot,” Stiles replies, and his heart sinks momentarily. “I thought the reason you promised was because you were desperate for me to leave! I thought you’d had enough of me being all snarky and flirty and everything else with you and you just wanted me gone!”

“You were being flirty?” he says incredulously.

“I’m already an emotional wreck today, don’t make me feel worse by making me feel all my flirting attempts were terrible.”

“Sorry. They kinda were though, I had no idea.”

He punches Derek in the arm for that, but there’s no anger behind it.

“You were just oblivious. Plus, there was a lot of other stuff going on, you probably just didn’t see --”

“Yeah, that was definitely it,” he deadpans.

“I care about you too, by the way, in case you were wondering. So stop being horrible.”

Derek smiles to himself. It’s not quite the truth, not really, but it’s close enough to it that once he works out what exactly the truth is, he won’t be scared of saying it. He doesn’t feel like he’ll be quite so alone in future.

“Are you just smiling to yourself right now? You take pleasure from my pain, that’s good to know.”

“Will you shut up,” Derek huffs back.

“I - I might actually,” Stiles garbles out around another yawn. “Do me one more favour?”

“I didn’t realise I’d done you any favours already,” Derek said honestly, because he hasn’t done anything tonight that he didn’t want to.

“Stay here with me,” Stiles says, “I’ll feel... better, knowing you’re here. I kinda feel less horrible as it is, but my mind is still racing and I’m still feeling pretty crappy in general. Knowing you can’t go anywhere would help. I’d be holding a slumber party tonight for everyone if they were here too, maybe I’m being a little overprotective.”

“Maybe,” Derek replies, “but it’s understandable. I’ll stay.”

Stiles quirks the corner of his mouth up around a yawn, a feeble attempt at a smile, before he snuggles into Derek’s arm and falls asleep with immeasurable speed. Derek’s actually shocked at how quickly he goes from being awake to gently huffing out breath into his side.

He looks down at him, watching him breathe in and out, feeling his heart beating slow and steady beside him. None of the warning signs that brought him here earlier that evening were there, and he was struck with the sensation that he made everything okay tonight. Not truly okay, because Stiles was still sad and worried and at some point would go back to his college life, but right now, Derek was the one who could protect him and make everything better. It was what he wanted more than anything, every single day for the rest of his life, to protect him from the darkness of the world. He wouldn’t let Stiles turn into what he had been.

He knew what that was. And he’d tell Stiles, because he isn’t scared of telling him things any more.

He falls asleep thinking of the best way to do it.

**Author's Note:**

> The obvious inspiration behind this is Cory, and I wanted more than anything to write this down as almost a cathartic release of how I felt about it. I didn't really know why I was so upset about it happening, but turning my feelings into Stiles's feelings helped work it out. I took liberties and made it more about how he would feel, but losing family both suddenly and slowly helped a lot with that. It's a weirdly personal little one shot, which wasn't going to have any major Sterekness in it until it just naturally appeared in that moment.
> 
> It's still very low key because it felt too forced to go past "I care about you" into anything more after everything they'd just talked about, too drastic a shift. It's just a sense of hope that I thought it needed to end on.
> 
> I hope you like it anyway, even though it's not exactly fluffy and bright.


End file.
